unearth 2012

Kelly on the pier at Joemma Beach

Whenever I return from hosting one of my retreats, I have a hard time trying to capture it here in this space. I take very few photos because I'm experiencing more than documenting. And then the re-entry time after the retreat is intense as I go from this one contained experience where I play one role back to this other real-life experience where I play so many roles in a given day (just like you).

And then by the time I have some mental space to share, the weeks have passed and I feel silly going back in time. This happens to me often...this time moving on and me wanting to share here and then stopping myself from doing it.

Things don't happen on a real schedule when you have a two year old. I put things on a schedule and it just kind of laughs at me. I planned to share several other blog posts this week. A poem I wrote. That you can now get "The Gift of This Moment" in a three-month subscription. A story about how I went to an event last week where they sent a car for me. Crazy! And a story about how I found myself sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor holding a little girl in my lap as she cried and I couldn't fix it so I cried too.

Today, I want to share this handful of photos from the Unearth Retreat. It really was magic as we painted with Mindy and Kelly and shared stories and wrote poems that we read aloud and then walked along Puget Sound with the most gorgeous light I'd seen this year. Frog Creek Lodge just invites in laughter and healing. When I think about it all, I want to tell you this most of all:

There is so much beauty, magic, and truth found in those in-between spaces when someone shares her story and you breathe in and out as you listen and then sit in the quiet and then you give her the gift of saying, "Me too. Yes. Me too."

 

(Hoping to share more about the Spring 2013 Retreat next week.)